SAN ANTONIO — One by one, the Villanova players climbed the ladder to cut down the net, and you have to believe their coach, Jay Wright, could probably do it with his eyes closed by now.

Wright collected his strand, looked up and flashed the victory sign to the Villanova faithful, which had AT&T Center to themselves after the red-clad Houston fans who had given their team a home-court advantage had filed out heartbroken.

It was Villanova 50, Houston 44, which means Wright, coach of the NCAA champions in 2016 and 2018, will head to New Orleans for another Final Four against the winner of the Midwest Region final Sunday between Kansas and Miami.

Caleb Daniels was the last player to climb the ladder, because he gets to go back home to the gumbo and crawfish he has told his teammates about ever since he transferred from Tulane.

The jubilation of this Elite Eight South Region championship was tempered and rendered bittersweet because Justin Moore, who slipped on the court and fell hard with 35.4 seconds left, missed the celebration, the Wildcats’ mascot dancing with players, Collin Gillespie and Most Outstanding Player Jermaine Samuels leaning over to slap hands with delirious Villanova fans in the stands.

Moore, a boot on his lower right leg, limped back to the court just as his teammates were finally ready to return to their locker room. They rushed over to cheer him up. A year ago, Gillespie had been in those empty shoes.

“I know what it feels like,” Gillespie said. “We don’t know what the injury is yet. He still has to get checked. I don’t ever want to see him by himself. He’s done so much for this team, always guards the best player, is one of our best offensive players, and will do anything for any one of our guys on either end of the floor. A lot of our guys ran right over to him because we’re not in the position that we are without him. So we just wanted to go over to him and just appreciate what he does for us and know that we got his back.”

An MRI exam awaits for Moore.

“X-ray was fine, no broken bones,” Wright said. “Probably not good for Justin.”

It’s definitely not good for Villanova.

“It kind of gave me a flashback to when the same thing happened to Collin last year,” said Samuels, who was the only Wildcat in double-digits, with 16 points and added 10 rebounds, “where it was like a numb type of feeling.”

The Wildcats knew what they were being confronted with 40 minutes from the Final Four, knew they would have to summon every last ounce of the grit and resilience and resourcefulness and smarts and togetherness and composure that had carried Wright to the top of the college basketball mountain in 2016 and 2018.

The Cougars, steeled by coach Kelvin Sampson’s murderous no-harm-no-foul practices, were waiting in ambush with their relentless toughness that had turned Arizona into a wide-eyed basket case.

“I describe it as a cobra being messed with,” Cougars guard Taze Moore said.

Villanova (30-7) may have been the No. 2 seed, but everyone could see that Houston (32-6) was not a No. 5 seed. You wondered whether this might have been a job for the 1985 Villanova team that shocked Patrick Ewing and Georgetown and the world.

The 40-minute fight of its life awaited Villanova.

But here’s the thing about the Wildcats: No game, no moment is too big for them. Villanova doesn’t scare.

Villanova is a well-oiled, well-trained, unflappable machine that makes the right play more often than the other guys and does not flinch.

Villanova is tough, physically and mentally.

You have no chance to beat Villanova when you shoot 1-for-20 from 3-point range, as Houston did Saturday.

You have no chance to beat Villanova even if you are the third-best offensive rebounding team in the nation, when Wildcats will not let you dominate the glass.

You have no chance to beat Villanova on a night when you shoot 29.8 percent — even when the Wildcats shoot worse at 28.8 percent. Even when you are successful taking away Gillespie (1-for-6, six points, one assist) and Moore (2-for-10, eight points).

“It was like playing against our own selves,” Daniels said. “They were just as physical as we were. It was a literal street fight, every possession trying to get a rebound.”

Finally, urgency and desperation compelled the Cougars to attack. The cobra had been messed with.

Taze Moore who finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds, drove on Collin Gillespie, and the Villanova lead had been whittled to 42-40 with 5:25 left.

The Houston crowd exploded. But attitude isn’t only a word the Wildcats use, it is the staple of the Villanova program.

Gillespie, who has made a career out of smelling Winning Time, hit his only made field goal of the night, with 5:04 left.

“They were soft blitzing me basically the whole game,” Gillespie said. “That time they just happened to switch.”

Later, after Justin Moore went down, Gillespie sank a pair of free throws with 25.7 seconds left that sealed it.

It has come full circle for Samuels and Gillespie, benchwarmers on the 2018 championship team.

“Now we play for those guys,” Gillespie said. “Those guys came before us, and they taught us how to play Villanova basketball and what it means to wear a Villanova jersey.”

It means everything to every Villanova player. And coach.

“It never gets old,” Wright said. “It is a dream of every player and coach in college basketball. It’s the ultimate.”

The ultimate coach for the ultimate team.